Falling Into Your World
by pinkangelsakura
Summary: AU. What would happen if Mikan never followed Hotaru to Alice Gakuen? Follow her journey as she discovers the world of Alices after falling head first down the rabbit hole. Rating for maybe mature themes later.
1. Chapter 1

Falling into Your World

Chapter 1

In a small country middle school, class for the day was over. Around her, Sakura Mikan's classmate rushed to get ready for the day's club activity or to return home. Since she had cleaning duty today, she took her time.

"Oi Sakura! You and Nakajima go and take these things back to the storage room," the class president, Mimura Kenji directed.

Mikan replied with a quick "Hai" and headed to the front of the room to help her friend Nakajima Sara gather all the materials that needed to be stored away.

"Ne, Mikan-chan," Sara began as they strolled down the hallway with arms filled with various maps and booklets. "Are you going to join the softball team? I heard that they've been trying to recruit you?"

Mikan let out an uncomfortable laugh. "I don't think so."

"Eh! Why not? You're so good at sports. I wish I was so athletic."

Mikan gave a sheepish grin. "Well, sports may be my strength, but I don't think I can join a sports club. It's very time consuming."

"Is it because of your part-time job?" Sara question as she began stacking the materials in the storage closet in the supply room.

"Yeah. I don't really have time to do anything else after school."

"Mikan watched as Sara responded with a sigh while she picked up the stack of handouts they needed to deliver to the teachers' room. "You're so great Mikan-chan. Good at sports, good at cooking, hardworking, and the school even gave you special permission to work. I can't compare." She finished her statement by woefully closing the closet door and leaned against it sulking.

"That's not so," Mikan said. "You're good at studying. You ranked higher than me on the last set of examinations."

"But not by much," Sara said sorrowfully. "Only by a few places."

"Don't say things like that," a male voiced behind the two girls. They turned around to find one Nishido Hiroyuki, who promptly relieved Sara of her stack of handouts.

"Here, give them to me," Nishido offered Mikan. "I'll take care of it. You go back and finish up." Mikan complied with a murmur of thanks and stacked her printouts on top of his.

"And stop comparing yourself to Sakura," he told Sara. "You are you, and Sakura is Sakura. Besides," he said as a blush crept up his neck, "you're fine the way you are." The end of his sentence trailed off into a mumble, which he covered up by quickly making his way to the teacher's room to deliver the printouts.

Mikan stole a quick glance at Sara to see the blush on her face, before starting off towards the classroom. She felt Sara fall into step next to her.

"Looks like your relationship with Nishido-kun is going very well," Mikan teased. In their small countryside school, secrets were hard to keep and rumors spread like wildfire. Nobody had been successful in hiding a new relationship for longer than two weeks. The student body was close and tight-knit since almost everyone attended elementary school together and grew up together. In their small rural community, outsiders were rare so a face that one saw every day soon became the face of a good friend. Their town was by no means tiny. It wasn't a village, but it was large enough where you didn't know everyone's name, but still knew that "Oh, he works at the market," or "She's lives in XX apartment with her 3 cats."

Because it was impossible to hide anything, it became a common game on campus, which soon spread to the community, to try and hide a relationship for as long as possible. The ones who had set the two-week record were two young elementary school teachers who used the fact that someone had to stay late and lock up the school as an opportunity to sneak in dates. Of course it became quite the scandal when a group of nine year olds were the ones to discover the relationship when they were sneaking onto campus after hours to tell ghost stories.

Sara and Nishido had lasted three days. After all, it's hard to keep your relationship a secret when your classmate's family owns the restaurant of where you had your first date.

Mikan listened absent mindedly as Sara quickly filled her on the details of her latest date while they finished cleaning. She was in a particular hurry because she needed to get to work. The people in the small legal office where she worked as a file clerk knew that she would be late due to her school duties, but she hated letting work pile up. Since that office was one of two offices that handled all the legal proceedings within town, there could be quite a bit of paper work to deal with on any given day, depending on whether any disputes came up.

She gave a spare glance at the clock and panicked when she saw the time. "Ah! It's so late. Sorry Sara," Mikan said as she handed Sara her broom. "Can you finish up today? I'll make it up to you, promise!"

"Oh. Do you need to get to work?"

Mikan nodded.

"Well hurry up and go! There's not much left to do. I'll finish things here."

"Thanks," Mikan said as she ran to the door and straight into class president Mimura.

Mikan gave a yelp as Mimura caught her arm to keep her from falling.

"Sorry!" Mikan responded quickly.

"Its okay," Mimura replied, a blush appearing when he realized who ran into him, "Just be careful next time."

Amused, Sara watched the short interaction between Mikan and Mimura before Mikan darted out the door. Mikan could be so dense. It was obvious that a good portion of the male student body at school (Sara personally thought it was something like 30) had (or once had) a crush on Mikan. Sara was suspicious that Nishido once had a crush on Mikan in elementary school, but he seemed to have grown out of that. A blush appeared on her cheeks as she thought of their most recent date.

Sara felt a little jealous of Mikan and the beauty she had grown to be. The commotion males caused around her got even worse when Mikan's good friend Imai Hotaru returned for vacation from her elite boarding school. The two were known as the town's infamous beautiful duo, and boys seemed to appear out of no where to hold doors open for the two of them and help them carry bags when the two wandered around town during Hotaru's last visit two years ago. Quite a few girls were annoyed at the attention Mikan got from the boys but Mikan's obliviousness about her admirers and her cheerful nature made it impossible to hate her. The fact that Mikan never had a boyfriend before (and that she was probably the only girl at school who was in that situation) seemed to help.

"Is there a reason why you're staring at Mimura?"

Sara jumped and turned to find her boyfriend. He simply raised an eyebrow and looked amused as he continued, "I'll get jealous if you're checking him out."

"No! I'm not!"

He smiled, then looked around and asked, "Where's Sakura?"

"Oh she left, She had to get to work."

"Well then let's finish up and leave then. Oi Mimura, come help us. There's not much left to do."

Mikan stretched as she closed the office door behind her. She looked to the sky and saw the sun setting.

"Well, I should go and buy some things for dinner." And with that, Mikan headed off to the market. She quickly bought her groceries while making small talk with the vendors. Mikan's situation at home was well known around town and because of that, the vendors always greeted her with a smile and set aside some basic ingredients for her. Since she didn't live off much and couldn't afford to buy many things too, they didn't mind setting aside a loaf of bread or some vegetables for her to pick up when she got off of work. Since she usually finished work around the same time that they started packing up, they usually charged her a fraction of the price for her groceries as well. After a time, it became an unspoken fact that Mikan had become a pseudo-ward of the town. And no one minded, because even after all that had happened to her, she still walked down the street with a smile and greeted anyone along her path enthusiastically.

It was getting late when she finished, so she hurried to get home. There was quite a bit of homework to do and her favorite show was on tonight. Since she was in a rush, she decided to cut through the countryside instead of following the dirt path that lead to her partially isolated house. Her house was at the end of the road it was located on, and there was a small path that led up into her backyard. Mikan and her grandfather created it when she was little. It was a shortcut that Mikan used whenever she was in a rush to get home.

Mikan made her way along the hidden path, occasionally ducking under some of the lower hanging branches of the trees that lined the path and pushing aside some of the taller grasses and shrubs so she could get around them. She hummed and walked with a small skip in her step while she pondered the latest development in her favorite TV show. She trusted her body to lead her home, since it was so used to following this path, most of the time she took it out of instinct when she was walking alone.

However, unfortunately for Mikan, her trained feet did not take into account the possibility of a new obstruction on the path. Since there had never been one in the past few years, she tripped right over the new roadblock and fell on her face.

Mikan moaned in pain as she pushed herself upright. She gave a shriek when she saw her groceries had scattered about and quickly moved to gather them. When she was reaching for her last orange, which had rolled under a shrub, her hand bumped into a peculiar cat mask.

"What's this?" Mikan asked as she picked up the makes and her orange. She turned the mask around in her hands while she got up to continue on her way. Unfortunately, Mikan was so absorbed in examining the mask that she failed to notice she was headed back the way she came and tripped over the mass on the ground again. However, unlike last time, Mikan was lucky enough to find that her groceries had stayed in their bag.

Furious at tripping twice, Mikan turned to look at what she had tripped over. The last thing she expected to find was the body of a young man.

"O…oi!" Mikan exclaimed as she crawled over to the body. "Are you okay?" A thought raced through her mind. _Are you alive?_

Mikan shook her head and muttered, "Don't think like that." Then she quickly surveyed the boy lying there and sighed in relief when she saw his chest move up and down, indicating breathing.

"Hey," she said shaking him, "this isn't a good place to take a nap. Someone will walk on you or you'll trip someone." She seemed to forget that she had been tripped twice by him.

The boy didn't show any sign of hearing her.

"Hey," Mikan repeated as she shook him. That was when she noticed his labored breathing and a quick glance at his face showed that he in pain. Mikan placed her hand on his head and flinched when she felt his temperature.

"You have a fever!" she exclaimed. She glanced around, hoping for someone to pass by to help, for she momentarily forgot that she was on her secret path. Mikan chewed on her lip for a while before tying her grocery bag to her school bag and hitching it over her shoulder. Then she carefully pulled the boy upright and slung his arm around her shoulder so she could support him.

After a moment of adjusting the boy to a more manageable position, Mikan made her way home while dragging a guest.

AN: Yay! New fic after three year hiatus. Guess that says a lot about how fast I write. So don't expect anything new anytime soon. I won't have lame excuses to back myself up this time.

Like it? Love it? Loathe it? Leave a review please. Fan girl squealing, harsh criticism, or if you don't like me, leave a rude flame, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or not. Who knows?

2/14/06


	2. Chapter 2

Falling Into Your World

Chapter 2

Mikan collapsed in a chair, breathing heavily. The remaining five-minutes of her stroll home had become a 30-minute workout. Mikan was athletic, that she knew, but carrying a young man home was a physical trial she had never tried before and hoped never to try again.

"At least," Mikan thought brightly, "I know I can do it now."

After she caught her breath, Mikan got up to find her medicine box. Once she retrieved it from under her bathroom sink, she went to the kitchen and gathered a glass of water, a bowl of ice water, and a small hand towel before heading to her grandfather's room.

After he died, Mikan rarely entered his room because the memories were too strong in it. Every time she walked in here, she remembered sitting next to him at nights, watching him struggle to breathe as he tried to fight off his illness. In the end, the sickness had been too strong for his old body, and he had passed away in front of Mikan's eyes.

Mikan blinked back tears and hurried to the side of the boy whom she had laid down on an extra futon. She pulled out a box of medicine and read the instructions on the back. "I hope you're older than twelve," she said as she broke two pills out of their casing. Gently lifting his head and opening his mouth, Mikan put the two capsules into the boy's mouth and poured some water into it. She then closed his mouth and watched him unconsciously swallow the medicine. Next, she dipped the towel into the bowl of water and wrung the excess out before folding it neatly and placing it on his forehead.

Next, Mikan moved to care for his wounds. She had noticed he was hurt when she had accidentally lost her grip on him on the walk home and dropped him. He fell with a grunt and then she noticed he had a rather nasty cut mark on his side. The bleeding had stopped but it was dirty and looked as if it had been infected.

Mikan gently pushed him over to his side and lifted his white shirt. Grimacing at the sight of the cut, Mikan gently wiped the wound clean with a damp cloth.

"Now this might sting a bit," Mikan said to her unconscious patient as she pulled some medicinal alcohol from the medicine box and poured it onto the cloth. She tried to clean the cut as gently and quickly as possible, but the boy kept jerking away when the cloth touched his wound.

"You're lucky," she said absent mindedly as she cleaned and bandaged the wound. "It's not infected. And I know what a cut looks like when it gets infected. I cut myself once doing something I shouldn't have, so I hid the cut from my grandpa. Didn't clean it well because I was only ten, and didn't now how to do that. Jiichan didn't find out 'til I got sick, and he had to rush me to the doctor. He was so mad at me. Later I got in lots of trouble, but at least I learned how to do this," she finished with a wistful smile.

"Ah, what am I saying," Mikan said, "You're not even awake to hear it."

Mikan turned him back over and moved to tend to a cut on his forehead. She felt a little guilty since he had gotten it when she dropped him. While cleaning the cut, she noticed he had a scar along his hairline.

"How did you get this? Must have been a nasty fall. Or did you hit your head when you got up one morning," Mikan mused. "Did you get this scar at the same time?" She brushed her fingers over a faded scar that was hidden by his right eyebrow.

After finishing, she sat back and examined his face.

"Eh, I'm jealous. Your eyelashes are so fine. Almost like a girls!" She exclaimed as she brushed a finger over his eyelashes. Then, she pinched his nose and asked, "Are you really asleep?" When he didn't move, she removed her fingers and sat back on her feet.

Shoulders slumping, Mikan let out a sigh of relief, which was followed by her stomach rumbling. Mikan straightened, startled. It seemed that since she had finished caring for the stranger, her body chose to remind her of her own neglect.

"Oh, its dinnertime," she exclaimed as she stood up and made her way to the door. She gave one last glance at the sleeping boy before leaving the room.

Mikan cast a worried glance in the direction of her grandfather's room. A few hours had passed since dinner, and the room's current resident had not made a sound ever since. She sat at the kitchen table and was working on her homework, but she was having trouble concentrating since her mind kept shifting back to the sick boy. Mikan wondered if she should call a doctor or tell the police about the boy she found.

She shook her head and turned back to her homework. However, after a few minutes her gaze began to drift over to the room.

"Ah, no, no. Stop that Mikan! I need to study for tomorrow's math test."

After several more unsuccessful attempts at focusing, Mikan gave up her attempts at studying.

"Ah… I just don't get this." She turned to glance at the clock on the wall. "11 already? Hmm, I should go to sleep soon."

Mikan cleaned up her books and put them away before getting ready for bed. After she was dressed and ready for bed, Mikan went to check on her patient. He was lying exactly as she had left him. She kneeled next to him and checked to see if his bandages needed to be changed. When she had confirmed that everything looked all right, she gave him another dose of medicine and then went to bed, but she had trouble falling asleep. The injured boy seemed to haunt her thoughts.

With a sigh, Mikan got up, gathering her futon before moving into her grandfather's room. She spread out her sleeping things on the floor a little ways from her guest.

"I'm just doing this because I don't want him to wake up in the middle of the night and not know where he is," she muttered to herself.

Mikan was lulled to sleep that night by another person breathing, and for the first time ever since her grandfather had died, she didn't think once of how lonely she felt.

Mikan bolted awake as she heard her alarm go off a few doors away. Scrambling, Mikan rushed to her room to turn off the alarm before it woke up her guest. After turning off her alarm, Mikan got ready for school. Once she finished her morning rituals, she returned to her grandfather's room to clean up her futon. She folded it and pushed it to the side of the room before checking on the boy. He was still asleep, so she left him to go and make breakfast and her lunch box.

While she was cooking, she thought back to last night.

She had awoken in the middle of the night because her patient was having a nightmare.

"Hey," she said as she shook him, "Calm down. It's just a nightmare."

He continued to thrash around before his eyes shot open, and he took gulps of air while trying to calm himself. After a few moments, he noticed Mikan sitting next to him and started.

"Who…are you?" he asked as he tried to sit up.

"Sakura Mikan," she replied calmly. "I found you collapsed near my home." She saw that he still didn't look too well or very coherent. "Hey, lie back down. You don't look too good. Just go back to sleep." She pushed lightly against his shoulder to ease him back down.

He tried to protest, but Mikan just hushed him and said, "Sleep now. You need the rest. We can talk later." She began to run her fingers through his hair, hoping that it would calm him down. She remembered that Imai-san had done the same to her the night after her grandfather died to help her fall asleep.

It seemed to work since the boy fell asleep soon after.

Mikan sighed as she popped the rice cooker open and started packing her lunch box. She wasn't sure what to do with her guest. It was a relief when he woke up last night (at least her wasn't in a coma), but he was still hurt. Should she take him to the clinic? Also, how he had gotten his wounds worried her. He had obviously been fighting. Was he fighting with a gang? Or maybe the yakuza? Mikan's wondered over the possibilities of what had happened while she absent mindedly prepared a second lunch box for her guest.

While she was busy thinking, Mikan smelled something odd and smoke began to rise from a pan on the stove. "Ah! The fish!" Mikan rushed over to the pan, pulled it off the fire and moved it to a cool burner before turning the other off. The pieces of fish she had been pan-frying for breakfast were burnt. Fortunately, they had only started to burn, so after removing the skin on the bottom of the fillets, she managed to salvage most of them.

It had been a while since she had burnt anything in the kitchen, but it wasn't the first time. When she had started living by herself, she had lost many meals to the trashcan, but as they say, practice makes perfect. She used to help her grandfather cook when he was still alive but making a meal by herself had been overwhelming. After some crash course cooking lessons from Imai-san and many trials, Mikan could cook pretty decently if her mind didn't wander while working.

Mikan finished putting together breakfast and glanced at the clock. "I'm going to late!"

She gulped down her breakfast and put her dishes in the sink before wrapping the second serving of food with some plastic wrap and placing it on a tray with a glass of water. She carried the tray to her grandfather's room and placed it next to the boy. Next, she placed the back of her hand on his forehead. "Hmm, your fever went down."

She reached into the medicine box and pulled two medicine capsules out and placed them next to the glass of water on the tray.

"Now," she said to the slumbering boy. "I'm going to school. If you wake up, take the medicine and eat the food. Don't mess up the house, and don't get into any fights? I'll be back after work, okay?" As expected, there was no response.

Mikan stared at him for a moment more before getting up and moving out of the room. While she hurried to her room to get her school things and get ready to leave for school, she spoke to herself under her breath.

"Ah, I have to hurry. It's already so late. Ah! There's a math test today! I'm not ready. Oh… what did I study last night? Let's see…"

This monologue continued as Mikan ran to school.

"I'm home," Mikan said out of habit as she stepped into her house. She hummed as she stepped out of her shoes and then out of the entryway.

"Hmm, I should start dinner soon," she mused as she walked into the house. However, suddenly the world tilted and Mikan, letting out a shriek, found the floor at her back and her guest stooping over her.

"Who are you? Where am I?" The dark-haired boy demanded as he moved to straddle her and wound one of her ponytails around his hand.

"Well," he said irritably as he tugged on her hair when she didn't answer him. Instead she gaped at him.

Mikan lay petrified as her mind tried furiously to process what was going after recovering from the moment of vertigo she experienced when she was knocked to the floor. One of the first thoughts that came to mind, as her brain slowly recovered from its shock was that there was a boy on top of her and they were in a rather comprising position.

"No! Pervert! Get off me!" Mikan cried out as she tried to push him off her.

Her exclamation seemed to catch her guest-turned-attacker off guard as a shocked look crossed his face. But when one of her flailing arms caught the side of his face, it snapped him out.

"Why you," he growled as he tugged rather viciously on the ponytail wrapped around his hand. When Mikan paused in her struggles to cry out in pain, he used his free hand to grab her arms and pin them above her head.

When Mikan noticed what he had done, she doubled her struggles, kicking her feet frantically and trying to free her hands.

"Noo…" Mikan moaned piteously. "If I had known you were going to do this, I never would have saved you." She continued to struggle and let out shrieks at random intervals.

"Will you stop that," the boy demanded as he let go of her hair so he could cover her mouth. He pressed down on top of her with his body in another attempt to still her. This time it worked.

Mikan froze at his actions and stared at him, wide-eyed. Thoughts raced through her mind.

"Pervert… why did I have to find a pervert? Why did I bring him home? He didn't look like a pervert lying there on the road bleeding."

"Good," he said when Mikan stopped struggling. "Now let's try this again. Who are you?" he finished viciously. He pulled himself off of her so she could answer him, but once Mikan felt his weight lift off, she pushed him off of her and scuttled backwards until her back hit a wall.

The boy fell down on his back and lay there for a moment, stunned. However, when Mikan noticed that he had not moved for a bit, she began to panic.

"Oh no! I didn't kill you, did I? I shouldn't have done that. You're sick and hurt! Ah…don't die!" she rambled on as she hurried to his side.

Taking a deep breath to clear his senses, Natsume opened his eyes to find the annoying girl hovering over him, flustered and muttering to herself. Angry at her for knocking him down and at himself for being caught off guard by a girl (one who was slightly taller than his shoulder no less), he fumed and furrowed his eyebrows in irritation while a spark flashed across his mind, signaling the manifestation of his Alice. A small tuft of flame burst into existence and hovered between his and the loud girl's face.

Startled by the sudden appearance of the flame, Mikan jumped to her feet in shock. "Fire!" she screeched as she raced to the kitchen and filled a tall glass she had set out to dry with water. However, during her rushed movement, it had not occurred to Mikan that the flame appeared out of nowhere. Instead, she thought the boy was on fire.

After filling the glass, Mikan rushed back and threw the water in the direction of the flame. The good news was that the fire disappeared. The bad news was that the water had hit the boy directly in the face because he had stood up when Mikan ran into the kitchen for water.

Natsume growled as his eyebrow began to twitch in annoyance. This girl was so troublesome and she hadn't answered any of his questions either. He was about _this_ close to burning all the hair off her head…and her eyelashes too, he added after some consideration. She obviously had no sense at all. Kidnapping him, then being scared witless when he used his Alice to scare him. He had been worried at first when his Alice didn't appear after he willed it to. He had summoned it when he first grabbed her as she came through the door. However it failed to manifest, even after he had concentrated hard enough that his head began to ache. It was disconcerting. First waking up and not knowing where he was; then finding out that his Alice was not there to protect him. Pushing him to the floor and then dumping water on him had been the last straw. Now that his Alice was back, he was ready for some payback.

Mikan gaped at the boy in shock while she blushed in embarrassment. She watched water drip off his hair and gave him what she hoped was an apologetic smile (but in reality, it was more sheepish than apologetic). She moved a step closer to him so she could help him but quickly retreated ten steps back into the kitchen when a row of flames burst into existence in front of the boy.

"No! It didn't go out!" a flustered Mikan cried as she fumbled with the knobs on the kitchen sink. She filled the glass only to drop it and spill the water in the sink. Once again, Mikan failed to notice that the fire appeared out of nowhere, because all she was concerned with was putting it out.

When she had succeeded in filling the glass again and turned around to extinguish the fire, she found the boy scowling at her as he stood about a step away from her. Mikan yelped in surprise and gawked at him.

Seeing her hesitate when she turned around, Natsume took advantage of her pause to snatch the glass of water from her hand and upturn it on her head while drawling, "Stupid." He smirked while he smugly basked in his small revenge. Oh, this was only a small slice of what was to come. It seemed the stupid girl didn't know the fire was a result of his Alice. That was reassuring since it meant that she wasn't an agent of his enemies.

While she gaped openly at him in disbelief, Mikan could feel the anger begin to build. Her body began to shake as the repressed anger gathered beneath her skin, threatening to explode. And when it did, it wasn't a pretty sight.

Natsume stared at the girl as she began to rant and rave incoherently. It seemed that her anger was directed at him, but since he was more preoccupied with planning the next way of getting back at her, he wasn't too sure nor did he really care. Instead, he closed the small gap between them and peered into her face while giving her the darkest look he could conjure up. It got the reaction he wanted. She shut up and stared at him tensely, fearing that a slight move would set him off.

"Well?" he drawled, his mouth spread into a mischievous smirk as he spotted his next mode of revenge. Of course Mikan mistook the smirk for an evil glare.

"Wha…what?" Mikan stuttered back a little more forcefully than need in an attempt to hide her uneasiness.

"I'm wet," was the flat reply.

Mikan paused for a moment. "So?"

Natsume gave an exasperated sigh. "A towel maybe." He looked down at her condescendingly, then added after a thought, "Polka-dot."

"Polka….dot?" Mikan furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she tried to puzzle out the meaning of his words. When she had no idea what he was talking about, she looked at him quizzically.

His only reply was to point at her chest.

Mikan looked down at her white shirt and shrieked. Yelling, "Pervert," she pushed him out of the way and dashed out of the kitchen and retreated to her room.

Natsume found himself on the floor, but instead of being angry this time, he immensely amused.

AN: I'm amazed I updated this early. Hopefully this pattern will continue, but realistically, it probably won't. Chapter 3 is about 50 done.

I need you guys' help for 2 things:

1st: Anyone know the name of Mikan's hometown?

2nd: I need some suggestions about Alices that would be considered in the "Special/Miscellaneous" (Tokuryoku) group? Leave me a reply or send me an email with your suggestion, and who knows, I may use it later in my fic :3 Credit will be given, of course, if I decide to use it.

2/28/06


	3. Chapter 3

Falling Into Your World

Chapter 3

Mikan pushed the bathroom door open and stepped out while toweling off her hair. After the rather embarrassing incident, Mikan had fled to her room then retreated to the bathroom so she could bathe and change her clothes. She had stewed away in the bath and replayed the whole fire-water event in her head. For a bit, she pondered about how the fire appeared, but then brushed it off as a trick the boy played with a lighter or some matches. Instead, she thought about what she should do with the boy.

He was evidently a highly offensive and rude person, and Mikan knew the safest option for her would be to cast him out of her house as soon as possible. But there were two problems with that. One was that he had already proven himself to be physically stronger than her, and if kicking him out came down to force, she wouldn't be able to do it. Secondly, she knew she would feel a bit guilty if she kicked him out. He was injured and, as seen by his state last night and bits of their scuffle, it showed he wasn't fit to be doing anything strenuous, or even out of bed actually…And yet he was out of bed and moving about.

That other time that she had an infected cut, she was so sick that she couldn't move for a few days and had ended up bed-ridden and delirious for a few days. All she could remember from that time was Jiichan always hovering over her, grouchily muttering under his breath, and that her body ached all over. She didn't even want to get up to eat anything. Even after her fever had gone down, she had to remain in bed for a few more days because her body had been so drained from fighting off the infection.

And if this boy felt anything like she did back then (or even the tiniest bit like how she felt), it was a wonder that he had been able to get into that scuffle with her. If Mikan was in his position, she doubted that she could have even ambushed him at the entryway. So it made her wonder how exactly he had the energy and stamina to move about like he did and not collapse. And to think he even overpowered her for a bit. Mikan was known for being one of the more athletic people in school, and most people knew not to get her angry, just because she had a mean flying kick that could be used when she needed to. (There really was only one person known to be strong enough to defend themselves from Mikan's Flying Kick: Imai Hotaru. Ironically, the reason why Mikan's Flying Kick is so powerful is that she had tried to execute it many times against Hotaru, only to be thrown 10 feet in the air by one of Hotaru's inventions.)

Sighing, Mikan draped her towel around her shoulders and moved to the cupboard and pulled two towels from it. She walked out to the living area to look for her guest and found him sitting on the floor watching television. He didn't acknowledge her as she walked in, so she trotted up behind him and dropped the towels on his head.

"The bath is ready. You should probably go clean up and get out of those clothes. You don't want to catch a cold."

The boy sat there for a bit with the towels unceremoniously draped on his head before asking, "Where's the bathroom?"

"Down the hall, third door on the left," Mikan replied as she headed to the kitchen. After a moment, she heard him move down the hall. Finding herself alone at last, she busied herself with pulling pots out for dinner, purposely making loud noises to make that boy think she was ignoring him. Truth be told, she made so much noise to calm herself down (and there was that one time right after she got into the kitchen and was so paranoid that he would pop up behind her that she had dropped her pot on the floor when knocked her knee on the cupboard.) When she was sure that he was in the bathroom (checking by peering down the hall to make sure he wasn't poking around her room), Mikan went to the entryway to retrieve the bag of groceries that she had dropped when he had assaulted her earlier. Her poor tomatoes. They were probably smushed to oblivion. She found the grocery bag crumpled on top of her shoes and frantically opened the bag to survey the damage. Much to her relief, her tomatoes seemed to all be intact, the loaf of bread she bought was a flattened a bit, and the potatoes seemed fine. Mikan happily gathered up her groceries and carried them to the kitchen, dumped the vegetables in the sink and began to wash and prep the vegetables for dinner.

After she finished cleaning the vegetables and tossed all the ingredients into a pot to make some curry, Mikan set to work making a salad. She was busy trying to chop a mushed tomato (it turned out that not all her groceries had faired as well as she had first thought) when she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Shrieking, Mikan dropped the knife and the bruised tomato and whirled around to find the boy standing there.

After taking in his appearance, she quickly slapped her hands over her eyes and cried out, "Why are you naked?"

"I'm not," the boy calmly replied. "I'm wearing pants."

"Then where's your shirt?" Mikan asked, hands still over her eyes, fingers squeezed shut.

"Well, someone threw water on it, remember?"

"That was an accident!"

Natsume looked down at the top of the girl's head and smirked, knowing that she couldn't see it. Time for some more revenge. "My pants are wet as well. Should I take them off too?" Amused, he watched the girl's face go from pink to bright red. She was too easy to tease. Truly a country bumpkin.

"No! Don't!" she exclaimed, panic evident in her voice. If possible, her hands clamped tighter over her eyes.

At this rate, she'd probably gouge her eyes out from embarrassment. However, lucky for her, Natsume wasn't in a blood-thirsty mood today. He turned away from her and said, "Pfft. You're too easy. I'm going to watch TV," before moving away from her.

Mikan listened to his footsteps retreat, but not trusting him after all the stunts that he had pulled, she didn't move until she heard the TV click on, and only then did she spread her fingers a bit to peer through the cracks to make sure he was actually doing something innocuous. Seeing that he had done as he said he would, Mikan removed her hands from her face, still colored pink, and turned around to pick up the ruined tomato, angrily chopped it into chunks before tossing it in the salad.

_The nerve of that boy!_ Mikan was furious, to say the least. Never before had she been so embarrassed. Not even the time (or rather the many times) when Hotaru bluntly pointed out her faults (in public no less) had Mikan felt so humiliated. Even that one time when Hotaru had been in a rather nasty mood a few days before her vacation from school ended and, for some reason, made a point to let every door she went through swing closed in Mikan's face. After the first few times, Mikan had wised up and caught the door before it slammed into her face, but the first time Hotaru did it, she had release the shopping center door when Mikan was halfway through the entryway. Needless to say, all the shopping center customers that had the opportunity to see a red-faced, red-nosed (and extremely embarrassed) Mikan execute her Flying Kick at Hotaru. Of course, it was unsuccessful, but then again, when had she ever one-upped Hotaru?

Mikan took her anger out on the pot of curry, stirring it furiously with no remorse. She was half tempted to add some extra chili powder to his share later, just for revenge. (_Why was she cooking for him again?_) But then her conscience and over active imagination kicked in and she envision all the possible bad things that could happen if she did so, beginning with him getting a horrible stomachache, which led to him accidentally aggravating his wound, to him finally lying on the floor, bleeding to death. Of course all this reminded her that she should probably change those bandages.

Mikan debated with herself as to whether she should help him change them now or later. She turned and looked at him from the doorway of the kitchen and caught a glimpse of the news report that he seemed to be focused on. It was odd to have the TV on when she was cooking, since she preferred to have the radio on instead. She turned around to finish tossing the salad with a ginger dressing Imai-san had made for her, but the droning voice of the news reporter kept distracting her. Usually, Mikan would have been thrilled to have company (living by yourself was lonely after all), but this particular company was neither polite nor friendly. Not good company at all. In fact, Mikan realized, she didn't even know his name.

"Well, the first step to making friends is knowing someone's name," Mikan thought. She took a quick glance over her shoulder at the boy and muttered, "Impossible, but…"

Sighing heavily, Mikan pulled her apron off and turned the heat on the pot down before going to her grandfather's room to retrieve the medicine box.

Out of the corner of his eye, Natsume watched the noisy girl walk out of the room and disappear down the hallway. As much fun as it was teasing her (When was the last he had been so amused? Oh right, there was that one time he had told Kokoroyomi to let it slip to his fan girls that he liked to relax in the North Woods. Watching them brave Mr. Bear and Giant Piyo in order to get to his "Relaxing Spot" had provided him with a week's entertainment. Also, they stopped bugging him, since they thought they could intercept him and Ruka as they lounged in the woods. Unfortunately, they caught on that it was a hoax and his daily fan girl annoyance resumed.), he knew he needed to seriously think about what he was going to do from here on out. His first priority was to figure out where he was and if anyone was following him.

His last mission had not gone well, and the enemy had managed to catch a glimpse of his face when the mask had accidentally fallen off. The mission falling through had been the fault of one of the S.P. units who always followed him as "back-up" even though he did all the work. However, that bumbling idiot's screw up had at least given him the opportunity to escape, and he had wisely taken it. He had gotten injured during his escape (a shot from the enemy had clipped his side), and to top it off, he wasn't sure how he had winded up here, wherever "here" was. The last thing he remembered was sneaking onto a train and getting off at a random stop when a conductor had started giving him suspicious looks. From there, he tried to cover as much distance as he could before he snuck on the back of some pick up truck. He had been forced to get off somewhere along a dirt path when the driver noticed him dozing in the back, and then he walked through the countryside until his vision had begun to blur. He must have collapsed then because he had no recollection of anything after that.

So of course it was very unnerving to wake up and find himself in an unfamiliar room. His first thought was that he had been caught. Maybe by enemies of the school…he wasn't sure. However this thought changed when no one came to bother him and he found that he wasn't restrained in any way. He ignored the tray of food on the floor, not trusting it to be safe or not drugged. Natsume had crept out of the room (shocked to find the door wasn't locked or bolted) and examined the house. From what he could tell from pictures and what not, an old man and his granddaughter lived there, but there were no signs of either of them at the time. And now he'd only met the granddaughter.

Maybe the old man went to get some help or the police? "He was probably senile if he had done that," Natsume thought. After all, who would leave their granddaughter, especially one as dumb as her, alone in the company of a suspicious boy? Stupidity must run in the family.

Natsume also wondered if it was really only those two in the house. Maybe if the two had joined efforts, they could carry him back, since it was highly unlikely that they could have managed to do so on their own. This introduced the possibility of a third person who knew about him being here, and this one would pose the greatest threat.

But as of now, he had only met the girl, and this disturbed him. He'd probably have to leave soon, but Natsume knew in this condition he wouldn't get far. He probably had a fever (since that's what usually happens to him when he gets injured. Probably a side effect of those drugs the Academy was feeding him) and that wound might be infected. Also, he hadn't eaten in a while. Right now, he was a sitting duck. If only he could get his bearings back, and that would require…

Natsume's thought trailed off as he focused on the girl walking backing the room. From the corner of his eye, he watched her deposit the tray from earlier in the kitchen before coming toward him with a box. He tensed as she maneuver behind him before sitting down. Natsume pretended to ignore her and attempted to seem focused on the TV while she rummaged in that white box of hers. It seemed that all those years of ignoring fan girls was finally coming into use.

"Um…" the girl began timidly.

"What," Natsume said, forcing that bored, aloof tone that he used when addressing teachers into his voice.

"Well," Mikan began, unsure as to how to approach this conversation. "I…well…I thought I should change those bandages." She shifted nervously when the boy turned his head to stare at her.

"Fine," was the gruff reply after a moment's pause.

Mikan slowly and cautiously began to remove the old bandages while the boy turned his attention back to the TV. But Mikan knew better. She could feel him watching her, even though his eyes weren't on her. It made her incredibly nervous and uncomfortable, so she decided to try and lighten up the mood.

"So, uh, what's your name?" Mikan began, in what she hoped was a conversational tone, but she flinched when the boy's eyes flicked over to rest on her.

After a pause, he countered, "Shouldn't you introduce yourself first before asking for someone else's name?"

"Oh! Right. Um, I'm Sakura Mikan, 14 years old. Junior high, third year, class 3-C. Best subject: gym. Worst subject: math," Mikan finished with a cheerful smile.

Natsume gave Mikan a long, calculating look before stating, "Hyuuga Natsume."

Mikan pouted. That was it? He most certainly wasn't talkative.

"How old are you?"

"14."

"Ah! The same age as me! When's your birthday?"

Natsume stared at her. Should he humor her and reply? "November 27th."

"Mine is January 1st! That means I'm older!"

There was a pregnant pause as Natsume didn't exert any effort to keep the conversation going.

"Um… well… this might sting a bit," Mikan said giving Natsume a quick warning before she dabbed his wound with a cloth soaked in alcohol. Actually she had giving him such a short notice on purpose, hoping to get some sort of verbal reply. Much to her disappointment, all he did was hiss and slightly flinch.

"So…" Mikan began once again, "Do you have any hobbies?" She paused for a bit, waiting for an answer, but seeing that he didn't care to reply, she kept going. "I don't really have any time for fun anymore, but I like sports, especially running and basketball. Fishing is also lots of fun. I used to go all the time with my grandfather. How about you? Have you ever gone fishing?"

"No."

Silence fell over the two of them and Mikan's eyes began to twitch. How rude could he be? He could at least try to chat with her. But no, Mikan was stuck holding a one sided conversation.

To show her feelings, Mikan gave his new bandage an extra firm pat to make sure it was in place, inwardly grinning when he flinched.

"Okay, finished!" Mikan said as she put all the materials back in the box and got up. She began moving toward the hallway when the sound of her curry pot boiling over caught her attention. With a yelp of surprise, Mikan dropped the box on the table before running to turn off the stove and save her dinner. She stared remorsefully into the pot as she stirred the contents about.

"Did you burn it?"

Mikan squeaked when she heard Natsume's voice. She glanced over her shoulder to see he hadn't moved an in, not even turning his head to talk to her. In fact she felt her annoyance level rise when he added, "It's probably inedible now."

"As a matter of fact," Mikan replied huffily, "No I did not burn it. In fact…" she was cut off by the beeping of the rice cooker and squeaked in surprise. Flustered, Mikan turned to her rice cooker and pulled the plug out of the outlet.

"Oh, finding this boy was bad luck," Mikan thought to herself as she began scooping rice onto a plate. She had never been this embarrassed or flustered ever! It seemed even her kitchen was against her since all the cooking seemed to have finished at the same time (Mikan had conveniently forgotten that this was actually a common occurrence).

Sighing disappointedly, Mikan carried two servings over to the table and called her guest over. "Are you hungry? Dinner's ready." When Natsume showed no sign that he heard her, Mikan stomped angrily over to the television and clicked it off.

"I made dinner. It's on the table," Mikan grumbled.

Natsume just stared at her before getting up (he had to use the nearby sofa to help himself up, Mikan noted) and headed toward the dining table.

Mikan chose the seat furthest away from Natsume, which was actually the seat across from him, and dug into her food after cheerfully stating, "Itadakimasu".

"So…" Mikan began hesitantly, not sure if she should try conversation with him again, especially after last time.

There was a long pause before Natsume grunted, "What?"

"Did…did you run away from home?"

Natsume pulled his head back to look at Mikan. He could see her begin to wilt under his glare, but for some reason, he responded anyway.

"Yes, in a way."

He watched a torrent of emotions flow across her face until she settled on a slightly curious look and continued with her questions.

"Why? Were you not happy there?"

Mikan stared at him, expecting an answer, but instead, he turned his attention back to his food and ignored her. Feeling bold, Mikan persisted. "Where did you use to live? In the nearby city? How did you end up here?"

Natsume snapped his head up and stared at her sharply. "You're noisy, polka-dots."

"Po…po…polka-dots?" Mikan stuttered in shock. She gripped her spoon tightly, fighting the urge to chuck it at his head. However, she was a bit unsuccessful for she felt her arm begin to pull back and set up for the pitch.

On the other hand, Natsume just smirked at her and continued eating calmly, except when he saw her wind up for the throw, he distracted her by offering a piece of information.

"I ran away from school."

Arm paused in the air, Mikan blinked confusedly at the boy across the table.

"From school?" When he offered no elaboration, she knew it was back to fishing for details.

"Did you not like the teachers?"

No answer.

"Was it a boarding school? Did you want to go home?"

Silence.

"Where was your school? Was it an elevator school? Is that your school uniform?"

Natsume thought if he gave her a small piece of information that maybe she'd shut up. He should have known better. This girl didn't look like she had the capacity to keep her mouth shut. She hadn't demonstrated it yet either. If he followed normal school procedure (or at least his normal school procedure) for dealing with girls, the next step would to ignore her until the girl would give up. That or leave the immediate proximity. Since the latter was impossible at the moment, he had gone with the former, but she still didn't get the hint, and he was itching for some peace and quiet. But he would settle for a change of subject.

"This food is so plain."

Mikan stared at the boy when he had suddenly made a comment (and avoided answering her question) "Wha…?" Mikan asked in an 'oh, so intelligent' manner.

Red eyes flicked up to look at Mikan in a condescending manner before a long arm stretched across the table. "You can't even make a proper salad. Not enough tomatoes. I've eaten salads ten times better than this everyday at school." Natsume calmly threw these barbs at Mikan while his arm reached across the table and stole a tomato off her plate.

Gaping openly at Natsume, Mikan worked her mouth up and down, trying to come up with a retort. He had the gall to steal her tomato (not that she really liked them…but it was the principle of the matter)!

"You…" Mikan began, fist shaking as it was wrapped tightly around her spoon. Before she knew what happened, her arm had drawn back and launched the spoon at his head. She ignored the spoon bouncing off Natsume's head as she began to rant and rave at him.

"You took my tomato! I can't believe you. And if you don't like it, don't eat it!" Mikan raged.

Natsume, on the other hand, could not believe that she was immature enough to throw a spoon at him. So he decided to teach her a lesson about maturity.

And, in all of his so-called maturity, decided to set fire to her pigtails.

Needless to say, Mikan had another puddle of water to clean up that night.

Chapter Notes:

Just some notes into maybe some cultural things that everybody may not know.

- S.P. is the Japanese type of bodyguard. You know, those guys dressed in black with sunglasses and look daunting in animes.

- _Itadakimasu_ is something Japanese people say before they eat.

Author Notes:

Its been a while everyone! Sorry for the long time in between updates. It might be a while before the next update. ; Sorry. Be patient with me.

Also, thanks for everyone contributions about Alices. Truth be, I sat down with my friend and picked her brain for Alice ideas, so I have powers for my minor OC's that I've been planning. I still will be accepting ideas for new Alices, and they may be included in the fic. No guarantees though.


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